Emperor, The (Throne Room) - SW [S - P3] - Basic (’03 #30)

The Emperor was the supreme ruler of the most powerful tyrannical regime the galaxy had ever witnessed. He was a scheming ruler, planning events far in the future, using the Force to foresee the results. He tried to turn Luke Skywalker to the dark side of the Force, even at the expense of sacrificing Darth Vader. Luke refused the power offered to him by the Emperor, so he attacked Luke with deadly Force lightning. Luke almost died in the assault, but his father returned to the lights side of the Force and hurtled the Emperor into the Death Star's reactor core.

The Emperor (Throne Room) is coming here, to the Star Wars "Saga" line? Hasbro shall double their efforts to bring us a great one. Or will they? It could be said that the most deflating action figure of the Star Wars “Saga” line is The Emperor (Throne Room). It utterly falls flat on its face thanks to disproportionate features and useless high-end articulation. The figure itself is quite an enigma. It appears that Hasbro actually thought long and hard on how to approach this action figure, but the execution leaves a ton to be desired. The Emperor (Throne Room) not only should have quenched the thirst of collectors for a modern update to the most evil one in the Star Wars saga, it should have been attacked in a completely different manner than it did. Collectors have grown exhausted of the “salt shaker” design of action figures. It’s become increasingly rarer when this style is needed, so it perplexes us why Hasbro kept running with this approach when all it did was provide us with a lackluster action figure. The Emperor (Throne Room) isn’t without any good points, but it may take a miracle before we get a definitive version that is free from issues. We’ll go through why this action figure may be the worst action figure interpretation of this character. (And this is truly a shame when its release is almost two decades after the original vintage Kenner figure.) The Emperor (Throne Room) at times can be deceitfully interesting, but don’t be fooled by its charm. There is a lack of charm here and until Hasbro completely revisits the way he gets made, collectors will remain disappointed.

The Emperor (Throne Room) is a mess. We don’t want to fully discredit Hasbro’s attempts on trying to develop a decent Emperor Palpatine action figure for collectors, but we really have to wonder what they were thinking with this one. For all intents and purposes it’s a plastic micro statue. Sure, it has some movement, but it really doesn’t do much at all but stand around. (That deflates us immediately. How will he sit in a throne room chair should Hasbro ever update that design?) The Emperor (Throne Room) comes with two ball-jointed shoulders. Huh?! Why?! They function terribly and it’s difficult to position them in a manner to replicate his Force lightning attack on Luke Skywalker. Essentially the ball-jointed articulated is useless. It is possible to position them at a 90 degree angle from his body, but swivel articulation would have been able to do that and much more streamlined in our opinion. Since Hasbro had decided to go with ball-jointed articulation for the shoulders, they needed to included something in the elbows to make the overall functionality of his arms more realistic and lifelike. Thankfully, The Emperor (Throne Room) comes with swivel wrists which are not only necessary for the cane, but also the Force lightning effects also included. Oh, and why in the world did Hasbro include swivel feet? That articulation could have been better spent on the elbows, or to get better range of motion out of the ball-jointed shoulders since even they don’t work so well wither.

The biggest disaster however is the hood. What in the world was Hasbro thinking? Because of its enlarged size, Emperor Palpatine looks like he has a little pea-sized head. We’re not making a mountain out of a molehill here. The hood sits way too high above the crown of his head and there is even airspace that helps to accentuate its exaggerated size. It’s definitely a head scratcher and we’re not sure if we’ll ever be able to figure out how this detail was missed or why it was ignored so that a more aesthetically pleasing one could have been retooled in its place. What’s really tragic here is that the face sculpt is pretty darn good. Actually, it’s better than excellent. Sadly, due to its design collectors won’t be able to remove the hood and outer robes if they wish to because the sleeves on the arms won’t go through the holes in the shoulders. So you’re pretty much stuck with the figure the way it is. That is until you decide to fully customize it and permanently “damage” it. From certain angles, the figure looks better that at other angles, but overall we’ll bet that you’ll be more dissatisfied with it than like it. It’s sad that this action figure went awry when we had great hopes for it. At least Hasbro is a little bit closer with this character. They’ve nailed the likeness as far as we’re concerned, now they just have to get that likeness on an incredibly designed body. It may take some time, but until that happens, this is not the ideal figure to hold you over until a better one comes along.